


Not Just Another Stray

by masterroadtripper



Series: Love Makes the World a Better Place [3]
Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fever, Fever Dreams, Friendship, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, POV W.D. Wheeler, Sibling Bonding, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 03:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13849338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterroadtripper/pseuds/masterroadtripper
Summary: Who found Soren?  Who uncovered his ture identity?This story is part of the Throw Away the Typical series and while written after Throw Away the Typical, it actually takes place prior to chapter 1.  It is recommended to read the series in order, yet not necessary.  If the ending does not make sense to you, read Throw Away the Typical  and everything will make sense.





	Not Just Another Stray

W.D. hated going to the market. The feel of everyone brushing past him, analyzing him and judging him were too much some days. Yes, he was endlessly grateful for PT Barnum accepting him and his little sister into the circus family all those years ago. But it also but them in the headlines and soon, people not only started seeing him as the tall and muscled african who could definitely hurt you if he needed to, but now a circus freak as well. So W.D. had postponed his trip to the market until the latest possible moment.

By the time he had arrived at the market, it had started snowing and the sun was dipping down behind the buildings of New York City. W.D. really just wanted to get back to the circus, so he collected everything on the list Fedo had made with pictures beside each item and nothing more.

The harsh coughing from the back alley jolted W.D. out of his daydream. The sun was well and truly down below the horizon and while W.D. couldn’t see the owner of the god awful coughing noises, it didn’t sound like your average street dweller.

It sounded like a kid. Letting his curiosity get the best of him, W.D. turned down the alley to see a young boy, huddled against a cold brick wall in thin clothing.

“Hey, kid, can you hear me?” W.D. asked, placing a cautious hand on the boy’s shoulder. His lips were blue but his shirt was soaking wet. _How?_ W.D. couldn’t understand how the boy could feel simultaneously so warm yet so cold.

The kid didn’t respond and instead let his lull down towards his check. He was out cold. And damned if he was about to leave the kid here. The snow was accumulating and W.D. knew if the kid didn’t get inside soon, he wouldn’t wake up tomorrow morning.

“Dammit,” W.D. muttered, putting his basket of food down on the snowy ground and removing his thick overcoat. The cold wind was biting, but W.D. had suffered worse. Wrapping the kid in the coat and lifting him over his shoulder, W.D. made his way back to the circus as quickly as he could.

 

“We’re going to need to warm him up,” Lettie, or better known as the bearded woman, said when W.D. told her how he had found the kid.

“Go get him out of those wet clothes and wrap him up,” their ringleader, Phillip Carlyle said, emerging from his office with Anne, his fiancee and also W.D.’s sister. “We can put him in amongst the crates, make a little room for him. He’ll freak if he wakes up out here,” Phillip said motioning to the big open space the red and yellow tent made.

W.D. set the kid on a crate and for the first time was able to see him in the light. The body before him was small and fragile, almost feminine in build. But the kid’s face was shallow and there was hardly any meat on his bones. Peeling off the overcoat, W.D. took notice of how the kid was still too blue for his liking and preceded to try to remove the soaking shirt. Once the dirty, wet and tattered shirt was peeled away from the kid, W.D. noticed what looked like bandages wrapped around the poor kids chest. But they were not hospital issue and were so dirty that the once white or beige material was an almost solid greyish brown. They were truly disgusting and W.D. began removing them as they could easily infect the young man’s skin if left too long.

What W.D. noticed first apon removing the fabric from the young boys chest was not the angry red and purple bruises on the sides of his ribcage or the way the kid inhaled more easily with the tightness loosened, but the breasts.

He was mistaken. It was not a boy after all and he felt abundantly foolish to have thought so in the first place.

After removing the wet trousers, but not the male-style underwear, W.D. wrapped the kid in a blanket and walked away to go find Anne and Phillip.

They were sitting around a covered fire, watching O’Clancy, the “Irish Giant” who was actually Russian, cooking up some borsche. “It’ll make him feel better,” O’Clancy claimed when W.D. inquired as to the reason behind the thick soup.

Now W.D. felt even worse. The crew thought the kid he had brought back was a young man, not a young lady.

But maybe there was a reason. There was always a reason. A reason why, perhaps, that a young girl had cut her hair so short, wore male clothing and bound up her chest. Maybe it was safer that way, seeing as she had been living on the street, to pretend to be a boy.

 

And it was never an issue until the kid woke up. Anne and Phillip would go back and sit with her routinely, however they never mentioned anything about her being a “her” to any of the other performers. W.D., as big of a man he was, didn’t want to see her, just relied on Anne assuring him day after day, “yes W.D., the fever is getting better.” Until one day Anne grabbed his shoulder and tried to drag her brother, almost a hundred pounds more muscled and three years older than her to go see the kid.

When W.D. planted his feet and refused to move, Anne said, “William Daniel Wheeler, why do you refuse to see the young man you saved?” He shook his head, pulled away from her grasp and walked back to the table he previously sat at to continue playing cards.

 

Phillip asked Lettie to see some of her old newspapers that night.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, prompts relating to this story are welcomed.
> 
> W.D. keeps the kid (Soren, he is named in Throw Away the Typical) safe in terms of his gender identity because while W.D. may not fully understand what Soren is going through, in his heart he would not want to see Soren sentenced to a life in jail/death.


End file.
